Wendell Potter: If the bill passes in this way, many millions of people will face bankruptcy

[Nikki Stone1]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#34455097

Potter explains just how the insurance companies have gotten their way on everything.

[eleny]

1. Saw that earlier and it was tough to watch

[SOS]

2. 2005 Bankruptcy Law, 2009 Insurance Law (coincidence?)

Looks like the wolves on Wall Street will not be satisfied until every last scrap of meat is picked from the financial carcass of the American public.

Wages, pensions, homes, savings, retirement funds...

They're not going to rest until they have it all.

Of course the US will no longer exist as a functional nation, but these parasites don't think past the next financial quarter.

[intheflow]

3. People are hanging on by their fingernails now.

Requiring them to buy insurance is going to put a lot of people over the edge, for sure.

[Nikki Stone1]

7. Once again, saving the corporations and letting people go broke

:grr:

[Lorien]

10. They aren't "saving" a thing. The insurance companies were too profitable

and powerful already. They're pushing outright Mussolini style fascism now.

[rockymountaindem]

4. But if we don't pass it, people are going to DIIEEEEEE!!!11!1

If we do pass it, they can live out their days in bankruptcy court.

That Potter guy knows what he's talking about because he's been there. In sum, this bill relies strictly on the goodwill of the insurance companies to work in good faith not to rip off the government and their customers by continually raising rates with the full knowledge that they will get paid one way or the other. I guess the past several decades of their behavior haven't convinced us that's not a good idea.

[Nikki Stone1]

5. "Medical mobster protection money"

GO KEITH!

[truedelphi]

6. God Bless America. An Oligarchy of self serving pricks

Who have driven the Middle incomed into the oblivion of a third world banana republic. (Without the bananas.)

[Nikki Stone1]

11. +1

.

[Lorien]

8. As if I couldn't feel more despair

this is just plain criminal. No hope, and the change just means "it can get worse".

[slipslidingaway]

9. knr nt

[closeupready]

12. Yep, it sure will; irony is that both Obama and Biden (sponsor of the 2005 Bankrtupcy BS Reform)

promised that they would revise bankruptcy rules to make it easier for those with medical debts to get a fresh start, but they haven't done squat on moving that forward.

[Mari333]

13. watched that last night

knr

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. Most of the figures I have seen still have the cost of coverage way too

high and too large a percentage of income.

More bankruptcies from restoration of annual cap the sleazebags tried to slide back in.

Please bear in mind that the prices we pay for healthcare are no where in the ballpark of the rest of the world. A canadian pays a little over a grand a year! Their companies don't have to worry about it!

And we're supposed to be grateful for f!@king reform that says an older person can only be screwed 3x the cost as opposed to 5x the costs.

It's taken a while for the majority of the facts to perculate through and settle in, but they finally have. The reform so far is nothing but a fraud perprtrated on the American people with the full collusion and co-operation of the White House and the Congress.

The reform at this point is so shitty that the Republicans will smell like roses when they say "Well folks, this is the best Your Democratic President and your Democratic Congress could do - how do you like that? Your costs went up and you didn't get squat! AND the squat you didn't get is going to take 4 years to not be delivered! Who is going to look more credible? And of course the reason the plan is so crappy (supposedly, but now I doubt even this) is because we were compromising with these a*holes who NEVER planned to be part of the process.

[closeupready]

15. Yes, the Republicans are going to make great political hay out of this disaster.

n/t

[gratuitous]

16. Don't worry, Something Will Be Done About This

I foresee a tweaking of the laws to make it harder to discharge medical debts in bankruptcy.